Thursday, October 19, 2006

Human Rights Watch accuses Hizbollah of using cluster bombs

HRW says Hizbollah used cluster bombs during the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

It is the first time anyone has made such an incredible claim. First of all, cluster bombs are difficult, if not impossible to deliver without using aircraft. Secondly, all of the 'evidence' has come to HRW second hand - Israeli police and some residents have told HRW about the 'cluster bombs'.

Is this the pot calling the kettle black? Cluster munitions are illegal in msot parts of the world. They are flying landmines, and are designed to kill civilians: a claim denied by Israel. 20 Lebanese civilians have died because of the weapons since the ceasefire. Farmers are scared to harvest their crops because the bombs lie unexploded across the whole of the south.

Israel knew exactly what it was doing. In the last couple of hours before the ceasefire came into efffect, their air force dropped one thousand cluster bombs onto southern Lebanon.

Those bombs have been independently verified by the UN. The claims of bombs in Israel have been verified by no-one except the mechanisms of the Israeli state.

While it is important for HRW to investigate cluster bombs in Israel, simply parroting wild claims of the Israeli state does no-one any good.

The claim was actually that Hizbollah used cluster munitions, not bombs, which are ground-to-ground weapons (fired as rockets) that don't require aerial delivery:http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/18/lebano14412.htm

This was also the main type of delivery used by the IDF during the conflict.

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Written by sasa

From Damascus, Syria

From Damascus to London via Beirut. Based in and out of the central Damascene hamlet of Saroujah.
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